Curto Circuito 3.0

Curto Circuito 3.0 details

Presentation

Curto Circuito is a daily TV show aimed at a teen audience.
It started in a cable channel called CNL in 1999. In 2000 it jumped into the newly created SIC Radical cable channel. It quickly rose in popularity mainly due to the charismatic hosts, Rui Unas and Fernando Alvim. In 2003 it was decided that it needed a new face, a new studio with a new set and of with it a new graphics package.

Development

This was the 3rd time the program would change its looks, and the 2nd time I was in charge of making the motion design.
I was given complete control over everything and, just like before, I would do most of the work all by myself with the ocasional tip or design input from Sigma3’s co-owners Ricardo Silva and Pedro Miguel Paiva.

Design
“Curto Circuito” in English means “short circuit”.
I wanted to break from the current graphics package made in 2000 and go back to the original ideas of electricity, technology and fast crazy analogies to everything energy related.
So the “idea generator” seen in the intro is powered by brain cells that shoot molecules. Each molecule has within it a sample of what makes the TV show: a music clip, a video, a microphone, a camera, etc. etc. In the end all of these molecules gather to build the logo. Crazy and trippy? Yes. But this is a show directed at crazy and trippy teenagers on a cable channel called “SIC Radical” so…
As for colors, orange and blue seemed like the typical perfect color set up to envelope a simple flat white logo.

Music
Perhaps the greatest decision was the one where me and Ricardo decided to contract a musician that would work at the same time as me so that we would synchronize and build everything together.
Carlos (…) started working right after the first storyboard was made. Me and Ricardo would ocasionally visit him in his studio to compare work and talk about ideas, the speed of the music, tempo, beats and everything else and he would also stop by to check how the visuals were shaping up.
By the end I had everything animated according to the music right down to the faintest beat.

Software

Photoshop 5.5
3DMax 3.0
Combustion 3.0

Hardware

Curiosities

This was the last project using the (by that time) already old Sillicon Graphics 540 workstation.
After 4 years of service the bearings in the fans for the cooling system were starting to get noisy. On top of that the machine was inside of a small office space with no air conditioner. By the end of the project whenever a render was made the noise from the fans got so loud that it was impossible to stay inside the small office.